Originally Posted by Senator Hatrack
Trumpism is not and never has been modern conservatism!
It is populism, it is not any form of conservatism.

Originally Posted by Jeffery J. Haas
Senator, where do you find the energy to build so many "no true Scotsman" monuments?
This keys directly into that thing about extremists again, where you became a follower of the SWP, had a scream-worthy meltdown when THEIR extremism didn't pan out, and immediately went to the other extreme on the other side.
Thanks for telling me why I stopped being a member of the SWP. The only problem is that that is not why I left the SWP. I left the SWP because I made an extensive study of their literature and realized that it was wrong.
Originally Posted by Jeffery J. Haas
I mentioned my oldest brother, remember? Just like you! He was SWP, SDS, all the way. Then he suddenly leapt over the entire spectrum and landed on the extreme Right instead.
And like you, he has spent the last few decades running around repeating that same No True Scotsman homily in an attempt to inoculate himself. You guys should meet. You're both a matched set.
My return to conservatism was gradual. Before I became a Republican again I was a grassroots member of the DFL. Hardly a jump to the extreme right. No, your brother and I not a "matched set."

Quote
The thing is, it doesn't wash. We didn't nominate Trump. Trumpers nominated Trump. We didn't vote for him, Trumpers did.
The overwhelming majority of the electorate who put him in the WH were already Right leaners, whether "independent" or Republican.

We did not build this orange menace to the Constitution, so WHO DID?
YOU GUYS did.
Modern GOP conservatism is what built Trump, what led us to Trump.
Modern conservatism is what triggered the entire Lee Atwater-Newt Gingrich-Dennis Hastert-Tea Party-Ted Cruz-Mitch McConnell insurgency.
Modern GOP conservatism built Trump?
ROTFMOL
I would suggest you read the book Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg. He is a Senior Editor of the National Review. A Conservative magazine, if not THE Conservative magazine, that published an issue in which all of the articles were against Trump. It is the National Review that started the modern conservative movement!
Originally Posted by Jeffery J. Haas
And when you do that ISIS-like "No True Muslim"/"No True Scotsman" number, all you're doing is narrowing the circle and inventing more and more excuses as to why your ideals and values are unrealistic.

They are unrealistic because by your own hand, fewer and fewer people meet your special criteria for an unrealistic ideology that has crept into pure demagoguery.

Worst of all, none of it has yielded anything constructive.
And you have an excuse for that, too!
"It's all the fault of the godless America hating Marxists!"
As someone who has spent a lifetime in politics and especially one who was either working on a campaign or been a candidate my goal has always been to build a winning coalition. In the districts I was a candidate for the state legislature in were 60% Democrats, 30% Republican and 10% independents. To even get the GOP endorsement I had to be liberal a lot of issues, which I still am.

Originally Posted by Jeffery J. Haas
Well, guess what? Your side has controlled the entire narrative for well over 40 years, even when Democrats were in the White House.
By the way, that IS partly our fault, without question.
WE LET YOU GUYS GET AWAY WITH IT for forty years.

But those days are over, friend.
The GOP has been in charge for 40 years? Is that why Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House during George W. Bush's administration? Is that why Obamacare passed? No Republican voted for it. Is that why Obamacare is still the law? Because will we did have control of Congress the Republicans couldn't get it repealed.

The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity.
I'm a conservative because I question authority.
Conservative Revolutionary